Rather than selling individual tracks to be downloaded, subscription services sell monthly access to vast catalogs of music, with whatever songs a listener wants to hear streamed directly to his computer or mobile phone.

Spotify will be offered in the same three-tier plan that it has in Europe: a free, ad-supported version; a basic ad-free version for $5 a month; and a premium service for $10 a month that adds access on a mobile phone, higher audio quality and other perks.

Spotify will be available first to U.S. customers who got themselves on a waiting list beforehand.

Will Spotify be able to duplicate its European success? Probably not — the marketplace is more crowded with like services than when it launched across the pond in 2008. But I will be trying it for sure.

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How is this different from Rhapsody? I’ve subscribed to Rhapsody for 10 years and have been extremely satisfied for $10/month. Maybe my taste in music is too mainstream, but I would say only about 1% of the music I try to find on Rhapsody isn’t there.

matt

I know we are all supposed to be living in the cloud now but streaming music still seems to be a limitation. I need to own it so I can take it with me and have it at all times. Streaming doesn’t work so well on a 50 mile bike ride, skiing or camping. $5-10 a month covers a fair amount of new music that can be kept forever (computer gods willing).

And in the end we all have 20 albums that make up 80% of our listening.